Section II, Part B: Reading
What the task demands
Part B is reading comprehension across advertisements, notices, emails, short articles, and paired texts. Questions ask for main idea, detail, vocabulary in context, inference, and the author's opinion. The real challenge is usually time and unknown kanji rather than grammar.
Concepts to master
- Text conventions: お知らせ notices foreground dates and conditions; 記事 articles state a claim and support it; メール implies a sender–receiver relationship that shapes politeness.
- Reference words: これ・それ・あれ・この・その point backward or forward; identify the noun they replace.
- Logical connectors: しかし、つまり、たとえば、したがって、一方.
- Kanji strategy: use okurigana endings, radicals, and surrounding particles to guess readings; tests usually check meaning, not pronunciation.
- Scanning for numbers, deadlines, and conditions such as 〜場合 or 〜を除く.
Traps
- Reading word by word and running out of time; skim structure first.
- Choosing an option that is true in real life but not stated in the text.
- Misreading the scope of negation (〜ないことはない、必ずしも〜ない).
- Ignoring whether the question asks for 筆者の考え or 文中の事実.
- On paired texts, picking an answer supported by only one passage.
Worked example
Rule of thumb: read the question first, then locate the paragraph. For a これ reference item, look at the immediately preceding sentence and check that the candidate noun fits grammatically. For opinion items, the claim usually appears right before 〜と思う、〜べきだ、〜のではないだろうか; highlight those endings before choosing.